S&P 500 Extends Win Streak; Fed Rate-Cut Odds Dim as Gundlach Says 'Just Not Possible'

The S&P 500 logged another weekly gain despite a tepid Trump-Xi summit, while inflation signals and hawkish commentary from strategists like Jeffrey Gundlach keep rate-cut expectations off the table. The macro backdrop remains tight capex budgets and elevated cost-of-capital for AI infrastructure spending.

For enterprise buyers, sticky high rates push ROI hurdles higher on GPU clusters, training runs, and inference deployments. CFOs are likely to demand tighter TCO validation on AI initiatives, extending deal cycles and favoring efficiency plays (smaller models, inference optimization) over raw-scale training bets.